Determinants and the Correlates of menstrual cup usage among medical students in a tertiary care hospital in Puducherry

ABSTRACT: INTRODUCTION: Adolescence is the period between 10-19 years of life and about 1/5th total female population in the world are adolescent girls who requires specific and special attention. Menstruation is a unique phenomenon happening at this age which has lots of social stigma attached to it. It affects the physical, mental and social functioning of any teenager which is of greater concern in order to prevent any major disorder of sexual and reproductive health in future. OBJECTIVES: To determine the prevalence of usage of menstrual cup among medical students and to determine the barriers and facilitators regarding the use of menstrual cup and finally to estimate the knowledge and practises and its association with various determinants of menstrual cup. METHODS: This study was a analytical cross sectional study conducted among the female medical students of a private medical college in Pondicherry. The study tool was a Google form comprising the socio demographic details of the study participant and the details regarding the usage of menstrual products especially menstrual cup. This study followed the universal sampling method and a total of 328 students responded. The responses were downloaded in the Microsoft excel and analysed using the SPSS version 21. RESULTS: Out of the total 328 study participants 54.9% belonged to the age group of 18-23 years , 45.1% were in age group of 24-27 years. Of these 62% were I – III years, 37.8% were IV- CRRI, these students resided in all the types of families, such as 42.1% in the nuclear type, 57.9% in the three-generation type and the joint family. The knowledge prevalence of menstrual cups was 42% among the study participants. The prevalence of the usage of menstrual cups was 41.5%. The logistic regression model showed statistical significance with age (OR=5.078, p = 0.003). Students aged 18 to 23 were 5.078 times more likely to face barriers to using menstrual cups than those aged 24 to 27. Furthermore, increasing age was associated with a decrease in the likelihood of barriers to usage. Those in lesser years of study were 12.086 times more likely to have a barrier. CONCLUSION: From this study its evident that literacy about a concept plays a key role in adapting to a new change. Thus behaviour change communication has to be the key strategy in formulating the change in behaviour to convert theory into practise.